DJ Hero 2

Posted: 10/19/10

The first DJ Hero filled a void in the music genre--replacing plastic guitars and drums with a sturdy turntable replica and wailing guitar solos with scratches and cuts. While it felt completely fresh and relevant, it was pretty streamlined and could have used some refinement. It's a year later and the sequel is ready to rock the party, but is it worth playing until the break of dawn or is it just a rewind?

Most of the complaints lodged at the first DJ Hero revolved around the music selection. Sure, the tracks themselves were solid picks, but there were far too many repeats and the post-launch DLC support was anemic. There's a lot more variety right off the top in DJ Hero 2 with over 100 songs paired down to around 80 unique mixes. The musical selection casts a much wider net. Hip-hop takes a back seat to more club-based tracks with a higher beats per minute, and a lot more opportunity to maximize the gameplay. You can even unlock megamixes that flow into each other to help eliminate downtime during party situations. The first batch of DLC is already queued-up, but we wonder if the songs should just be included on the disc. It's also disappointing that you can't import the song list from the first game if you already own it.

Last year's game, as innovative as it was, really gave you little framework to exploit your DJ skills. Basically a list of mixes to work through, you had no context to motivate you. DJ Hero 2 tries to remedy this with its empire mode. Here you choose a turntablist and attempt to take him or her from the basement to the super clubs. Character customization is kept to clothes and gear, but at least you can import your Xbox Live avatar into the game. While empire mode attempts to impart some semblance of structure, it's extremely limited. As you complete each venue with a set number of stars another one becomes unlocked, and with no meta games or career-changing decisions to make, it's ultimately just a gussied-up set list.

Multiplayer is where the game has really received a boost. Now you can play simultaneously against a friend both online and off and a couple of the options really foster a competitive spirit. DJ battle has you taking turns trying to one-up each other. Each section is graded with the winner receiving a point. The player with the most points wins. What we like most about this option is that you can totally bomb one section of a song, but make up for it by winning the next.

Another favorite is called accumulator where you have the freedom to bank your points at any time. This risk/reward aesthetic provides an opportunity for a lot of strategy with players who know the mixes and their skill levels having a distinct advantage. Best of all, you can drop in or drop out of multiplayer at any time using the party play function that's been a boon to the guitar-based games for the last couple years. While you could sing or rap along in the first game, there was no structure to it. Now there are scrolling lyrics and a scoring system to keep you motivated. The guitar functionality has been removed, but no one is going to miss it.

Probably the best news of all is that DJ Hero 2 uses the same exact turntable peripheral as the first game. This lessens the barrier of entry for those who already cut the first release to shreds. If you're jumping in for the first time, the price of the peripheral pack-in has been slashed, making the sacrifice less severe. Just don't think that using the same peripheral has kept the gameplay from evolving.

The core of the gameplay remains the same. A note highway scrolls and you must tap the three buttons on the turntable platter in time with the music. One small wrinkle is that some notes must be held in instead of just pressed. Scratching sections ask you to hold a button as you move the platter back and forth; there are places that allow you to fire off samples; you use the cross fader to slide from one track to the next; and you can twist a knob to alter the overall sound. As you build up your points and multipliers you can hit the euphoria button to go into overdrive, and if you really tear it up you can spin the platter backwards and rewind a song to play through the same section again and accumulate even more points. Where the gameplay has really changed is the ability to impart your own creativity into the mix. There was a little bit of this in the first DJ Hero, but in the sequel it's been magnified.

DJ Hero 2 is all about freestyling it. While you could trigger pre-selected samples in the first game, here the sounds are pulled directly from the tracks themselves--making for a much more organic result. Scratching always sounded exactly how the developers recorded it in the first DJ Hero, but now there are freestyle sections that allow you to scratch as fast or slow as you want.

Both of these additions are great, but what stands out the most is that you can cut back and forth between the two tracks however you want using the cross fader. It essentially allows you to create your own remix on the fly and the sections are generally long enough to really give you a chance to work it. The one downer is that just one person controls it in multiplayer, but otherwise, it's so fun you'll wish that you had the ability for the entire song instead of just pre-chosen sections.

The gameplay in DJ Hero 2 has received a nice upgrade--essentially taking the best moments from the first game and making them the cornerstone. Freestyle samples, scratching, and mixing allow you to shape each mix to your taste and the scoring system does an excellent job of rewarding you for a job well done. A higher average beats per minute means that you must have a quicker hand, and the inclusion of head-to-head and party play means that it's a much more viable candidate in social situations.

Not much has changed with the visuals in this year's game, and it's a lost opportunity. Crowd response is key to any successful DJ set and here you either get the on-stage gogo dancers or a robotic, repetitive crowd. Dance circles are an integral part of the scene and their inclusion could have been a strong visual cue to the quality of your play. The game features an impressive list of real DJs to play as or against, not the least of which is the enigmatic Deadmau5. Some will be left wondering who some of the more obscure folks are, but for those who really know dance culture it's a smartly-selected who's who. The menus and interface are undeniably slick, but with no cutscenes--or anything else really--to give any sort of relevancy to the empire mode, the graphics are something you'll eventually just tune out.

The developers make a point to work on the music for DJ Hero with some of the world's best mashup artists and it definitely shows. Some of the pairings seem like unlikely candidates until you actually hear them and the care that has been taken to re-produce some of the songs to smooth out the rough edges comes shining through. Far more than just two songs set to the same BPM and jammed together, each mix on the soundtrack pulls the best moments from each track into a thoroughly enjoyable whole.

It would have been easy to just pull together another list of mashups and call it day, but DJ Hero 2 has gone above and beyond the typical music game sequel. From the engaging head-to-head options and easy going party play to the increased emphasis on player creativity, it's an improved experience all around. The new empire mode doesn't accomplish much and the graphics have seen some neglect, but where the first game gave you a taste of what it's like to move a crowd, DJ Hero 2 really gives you the full arsenal without sacrificing the fun.

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